Rounds
by sinemoras09
Summary: AU. Mohinder finds he has more in common with Adam than he is comfortable admitting. Oneshot. Gen. Originally written during Season 2.


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"I read in your file that you had some medical training. We can put that to good use."

Mohinder sits in Bob's office, his hands folded in his lap. Bob is leafing through Mohinder's file, pausing every now and then to highlight on the text. Mohinder waits uneasily as Bob finishes shuffling through the pile.

"We've been without a physician for quite some time now. Fortunately for us, this hasn't been a problem," Bob says. "Our scientists are very well equipped to deal with the clinical side of their research. We expect you to be no different."

"But I'm not a clinician, I'm a scientist," Mohinder says. "I can listen through a stethoscope just fine, but the different gradations of heart and lung sounds are completely foreign to me. I wouldn't know a heart murmur from a chest cold. And even if I did, I wouldn't know what to do about it."

"Dr. Suresh, any third-year medical student can do what we're asking you to do. All you need to do is make sure they're still breathing. That's all," Bob says.

Mohinder nods, slowly. He takes the Company stethoscope and places it around his neck.

"What happened to the physician on staff?" Mohinder asks. Bob spreads his hands.

"Your friend, Mr. Sylar, killed him," Bob says.

Mohinder stares at the paperweight gleaming on Bob's desk. The edges are wrapped in gold.

xXx

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4:30 AM, Mohinder wakes and prints out a census: 24 subjects in-house; 16 experiments the previous night. Those that were experimented on need labwork to make sure they can tolerate further testing. Those that weren't experimented on are likely to be released--they're just routine bag-and-tags, so all they need is their trackers checked to make sure they're working properly. Mohinder logs onto the computer, checks the status of each subject. Already it's making his head hurt, and he's only been on the job for half an hour.

Mohinder places the stethoscope around his neck and puts on his white coat. Then he loads up his cart and starts making his rounds.

Things go by uneventfully. Mohinder starts to get the hang of charting, of changing IV fluids and checking the trackers. He finishes his rounds and heads toward Adam Monroe's cell: Adam has the double luxury of not only having had experimentation done on him the night previously, but also is someone from whom Mohinder needs samples. It would be a long visit, so it behooved Mohinder to save him for last.

The hall is dark except for the side lights on the floor. The hallway is made entirely of glass; through it, Mohinder can see all the uninhabited cells, the fresh sheets waiting for each new subject. Sylar had been kept here; so had countless other high risk individuals over the course of The Company's lifetime. Mohinder pushes his cart, feeling vaguely unsettled. At the very end is Adam Monroe's cell. Mohinder parks his cart and peers through the glass. Adam is asleep. Mohinder opens the door.

The fluorescent lights flick on. Adam rolls over, shielding his eyes. Mohinder kneels down beside him.

"I have to examine you," Mohinder says, quietly. "This won't be long."

Adam sits up. Gingerly, Mohinder puts on his stethoscope and listens to Adam's heart and lungs. He pulls off the stethoscope and places it around his neck. "I need a sample of your blood. Do you have a preference for which arm I use?"

"It doesn't really matter," Adam says, and Mohinder kicks himself, mentally. Adam heals, of course it doesn't matter. But Adam says it softly and without irony. He holds his arm out, waiting for Mohinder to tie on the tourniquet.

Mohinder pulls the tourniquet around Adam's arm, and tries to tie it the proper way--with a half-knot, so that the tourniquet can slip off easily. But he can't get it to work, so he ties it tight the regular way, as if he's tying a shoe-lace. Adam watches him with a quiet disinterest, the way a cat would sitting by a door.

"Okay," Mohinder says. "Just a pinch." And he sticks the needle in Adam's arm.

No blood.

"Wait--" Mohinder's brow knits. He advances the needle, waiting for the flush. Nothing.

"I think I infiltrated the--I think I missed your vein," Mohinder corrects himself, remembering to speak in laymen's terms. "I have to try again." He pulls the needle out and advances. Still nothing. A large bruise starts to form at the puncture site.

"You might want to try the other arm, the vein's collapsed," Adam says. Mohinder glances up and quickly removes the needle. As soon as the needle's withdrawn, the bruise begins to involute, going from a deep purple to a mottled green, and then regresses completely. Mohinder frowns, fiddling with his syringe.

"Sorry," Mohinder says. "I'm not trained to draw blood."

"It's all right," Adam says. "I think I prefer you to Elle." And then Mohinder realizes _Adam's speaking in Hindi_. He's been speaking Hindi the entire time; it was so fluent Mohinder didn't even notice.

"What's wrong?" Adam asks, and Mohinder's mind skips. He pulls out the tourniquet quickly, tightening it around Adam's arm.

"You speak Hindi," Mohinder says.

"You sound surprised," Adam says.

"But you speak Hindi better than I do," Mohinder says. Adam sits up, delighted.

"You're a Tamil speaker! You should have told me," Adam says, switching languages. "And here I was, being presumptuous. I should have realized. My apologies. It's been awhile since I've been in the region."

"I--I'm sorry, this is all so much," Mohinder says, in Tamil. "I haven't spoken Tamil with anyone for so long...."

"I know the feeling," Adam says. "I haven't conversed with a proper Englishman in decades. Come to think of it, you're probably the closest thing to it. Were you schooled in Britain?"

"Yes. Oxford." Mohinder's mind is still playing catch-up. He re-ties the tourniquet around Adam's arm. "How do you know Tamil?"

"I've been around," Adam says. "When you're as old as I am, collecting languages becomes kind of second nature."

The needle advances; blood begins to come out. Mohinder sits back, relieved.

"Finally," Mohinder says. "I've never been good at things like this. It always makes me uneasy, especially if I'm not one-hundred percent sure of what I'm doing."

"I thought not. You don't seem like the type," Adam says.

"You mean the doctor type?" Mohinder asks.

"I mean the 'Company' type," Adam says. "Ruthless and singularly driven. You just don't strike me as that kind of person."

Mohinder finishes collecting the blood. "And what kind of person do you see me as?" Mohinder asks.

"Intelligent. Philosophical. Perhaps a bit too philosophical, but not to the point where it interferes with your work," Adam says. "You remind me of me, in a way. Being so far from home, and all."

"Home is where you make it," Mohinder says. "I've no particular attachments. My research is what's important."

"You're lying," Adam says. "You think about it all the time. Why else are you still speaking Tamil to me?"

"Because you're not speaking English," Mohinder says, in English. It comes out angrier than he had intended. It's too much, too soon, too damn personal to be anybody's business. The last time he opened himself up like that, he had inadvertently helped the man who killed his father; the man on whom he had sworn to to take revenge. It's as if he's being manipulated all over again.

Adam seems to withdraw into himself. He hunches over, folding his arms.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to presume," Adam says, quietly. He's speaking in English, now. "Home for me was four hundred years ago, there's no way I can go back. I just thought it was something we had in common."

Mohinder's jaw tightens. "Well you would be wrong," Mohinder says. Adam's eyes grow dim.

"I see," Adam says. He turns around in his bunk and faces the wall.

Later, Mohinder drops by the records office and asks for the files related to Adam Monroe: newspaper clippings, historical records; birth certificates to children he probably had never known. Pulling out a folder, a yellowed piece of paper slips out and flutters on the desk: a page from a diary, dated almost sixty years ago. Mohinder picks it up and holds it to the light. _"I never knew my parents,"_ it says. The handwriting is immaculate, as if it were written during the Civil War. _ "Sometimes I wonder if I just sprang up from the earth. It's been so long, I don't even know...."_

Mohinder sets the page down. Rubbing his eyes, he glances back at the clock, which reads 2:12 in the morning. Slowly, he begins to pack up his things, switching off the lamp by his desk before heading toward the door.


End file.
